Life Day Song Propaganda and Parodies
by anonymousclarinet22
Summary: Ezra, Sabine, and Zeb are walking through the streets of Garel the week before Life Day when they witness what the Empire is resorting to for propaganda.


AN: This is a Christmas oneshot I forgot to post. The disclaimer is at end of story to avoid spoilers. 

Life Day Song Propaganda and Parodies

Sabine, Ezra, and Zeb walked down the streets of Garel one brisk winter morning on a supply run for Hera. Of course, the rest of the crew had thrown in some suggestions as well, so it could take a while. The three Spectres had been instructed to pick up some jogans, a bottle of space ketchyyp, caff grounds, hot chocolate, bread, blue milk, space waffles, and, of course, some ever-dreaded meiloorun melons. Thankfully, the fruits that were so rare on Lothal were much more easily available on Garel. The non-edible items they were suppo I'n sed to purchase included various replacement parts, art supplies, allergy medicine, and ration bars, which were considered non-edible, according to Kanan. After some debate, they concluded that Zeb would get the groceries, Ezra would go to the repair shop, and Sabine would run by the pharmacy before picking up her art supplies. At 0800 hours, they would meet in front of the diner beside the spaceport, where Chopper would pick them up in the Phantom.

Zeb was in charge of food, since he ate the most, and because he was the only one who would be able to carry it all. Well, excluding Ezra, if he used the Force, but that was obviously not an option. He headed into the supermarket and grabbed a hovercart, then pulled out Hera's list, which was at least a mile long. He groaned. At least he could get some space waffles…and some candy, to bribe Ezra with.

Ezra went to the repair shop and began collecting the various power converters and power cells Hera needed, along with a new hydrospanner, since Zeb had broken their old one of that size. He was also in search of a replacement energy gate for his lightsaber, since his current one was finicky and malfunctioned occasionally. As he exited the store, he glared at a wall covered in Imperial propaganda posters that read ridiculous slogans, such as "Explore the Galaxy, Join the Imperial Navy," "The Empire: Power, Strength, and Loyalty," and "Crush the Rebellion! Rebels are Terrorists!" Every citizen of the Galaxy was surrounded by lies on a daily basis.

Sabine decided to go to the pharmacy before the art store. Zeb had developed an allergy to dokma, the shell critters back at the base, so Hera had instructed them to buy some allergy medicine so he wouldn't be sneezing constantly. It took her a while to decide on the type, however, because there wasn't a specific strength of medicine for Lasats, so she eventually went with the Wookie medicine. Then, she went to the art supply shop and selected three new colors of paint, as well as two refills, and a pack of flimsy.

After completing their errands, the Spectres made their way to the diner near the spaceport. The teenagers laughed at the sight of Zeb trying to carry what he claimed was twenty bags of groceries. Just as they were about to leave, a patrol of stormtroopers marched in front of the spaceport, and a crowd began to gather in front of them.

"We need to leave, now," said Ezra.

"We can't; that would look suspicious," Zeb argued. "Besides, they're standing right in front of the spaceport entrance." Zeb set the innumerable bags of groceries on the sidewalk, and the three rebels watched uneasily, ready to flee at any moment, or fight, if needed.

"Alright, alright, listen up, citizens!" declared one stormtrooper. The crowd held its breath. "In celebration of the upcoming holidays, we will be singing a song for all the humans in Garel City!" The few aliens who had gathered in the crowd began to disperse before they could be thrown out by the troopers. Then, the stormtroopers produced a large speaker from a crate they had been pushing, and the people burst into applause as the music started. Two stormtroopers each grabbed a microphone, and the others began doing strange dances that they apparently thought looked cool. Then, the stormtroopers began to sing: "You better watch out, you better not fight, you better go hide, I'm telling you why: Palpatine is coming to town!" The crowd cheered at the mention of their Emperor. "He's making a list of people to find; he's gonna find out where your loyalties lie; Palpatine is coming to town!" The crowd started clapping to the beat as the stormtroopers began attempting some strange tap dance, at which they failed miserably. "He sees you when you're sleeping! He knows when you're awake! He'll know if you join the Rebels, so don't unless you want to die!" Now, the stormtroopers motioned for the crowd to join in with them for the chorus. "Oh, you better watch out, you better not fight, you better go hide, I'm telling you why: Palpatine is coming to town!" As the song ended, the crowd burst into applause, and the stormtroopers began bowing and continued showing off their subpar dance moves.

Sabine, Zeb, and Ezra watched in horror and disgust. "They would go so far as to change a holiday song into propaganda?" Ezra asked, shocked.

"It's the Empire, what do you expect?" Sabine spat, glaring at the troopers, who continued to dance horribly.

"That song always gave me the creeps," Zeb commented. "Now that they've added the Emperor into it, the song is literally just a giant threat, and the people are cheering like it's a celebration!"

Indeed, the people were applauding with such vigor that the stormtroopers decided to do an encore. "Okay, okay, people! Listen up!" commanded a stormtrooper. "Since you guys liked that so much, we're going to do an encore!" The crowd cheered even louder, if possible. "However, we didn't plan on singing a second song, and it's only halfway written, so we'll be improvising!"

"I have a bad feeling about this," Ezra muttered, shaking his head.

The music started, and one of the stormtroopers produced some jingle bells, which he rang out of time, never on beat. The rebels cringed at his lack of rhythm. "Just hear those TIE fighters roaring and blowing up rebel ships, too! Come on, it's lovely weather to shoot some x-wings with you!"

"They're ruining another Life Day song?" Sabine scowled. "They're not even going to try to write something original?"

"There is no try," Ezra reminded her.

"With the Empire, there is," Zeb replied. "These troopers barely know how to string a coherent sentence together, let alone write their own song!"

Said song continued, and the stormtroopers pretended they were steering TIE fighters, while singing, "Outside there's x-wings exploding and the rebels are crying 'boo hoo!' Come on, it's lovely weather to shoot some x-wings with you!"

"Oh, Force, they're singing about us dying!" Ezra groaned. "This is ridiculous!"

"Giddyup, giddyup, giddyup—wait, that doesn't make sense in context!" sang one of the troopers, as the music continued on without him. He shrugged and continued dancing. "We're flying in our TIE fighters through the snow! That didn't rhyme!"

The rebels began chuckling at the stormtroopers' desperate attempts to continue their failing parody. Eventually, they gave up on singing and only danced while waiting for that stanza to end.

"Our ships are nice and shiny and good at flying are we!" They began again. The three Spectres snorted in amusement at the inaccuracy of the latter statement. "We're flying close together like two birds made of metal would be! Let's kill those rebels before us and sing a chorus or two! Come on, it's lovely weather to shoot some x-wings with you!" During this stanza, one of the stormtroopers had been typing furiously on a datapad, and when he finished, he projected his recently completed work onto the spaceport gate so the troopers and the crowd could see the lyrics, and to prevent future mishaps where they couldn't come up with any semi-logical lines.

"There's a rebel ship that is about to kill—" the troopers fired their blasters into the air recklessly, and the Spectres looked on, horrified, at their lack of gun safety, "—us all, but Darth Vader's TIE Advanced saved us from a—" again, blaster shots echoed throughout the streets, "—close call! We'll be shooting those rebels we love to shoot without a single stop! Then we'll fly off and watch their ships go pop! Pop, pop, pop!"

Zeb rolled his eyes. "Unlikely!" he grumbled. "They can't hit anything!"

"There's a happy feeling nothing in this Galaxy—" pew pew pew, "—can buy, when the rebel fleet is finished and they start—" pew pew pew, "—to cry. It'll be like a picture on those cheesy postcard things you buy!"

"They have postcards with pictures of us crying on them?" Ezra wondered, confused.

"Of course not!" Zeb looked offended by the idea. "Lasats don't cry!"

"It's a simile, Ezra," Sabine informed him.

"These wonderful things are the things we remember all through our lives!" they sang, twirling in circles and waving their arms randomly. "These wonderful things are the things we remember all through our lives!"

"Which won't be very long, if they actually manage to do these things," Zeb growled threateningly, cracking his knuckles.

"TIE fighters roaring and blowing up rebel ships, too! Come on, it's lovely weather to shoot some x-wings with you!" they continued. "Come on, it's lovely weather to shoot some x-wings with you! Outside there's x-wings exploding and the rebels are crying 'boo hoo!' Come on, it's lovely weather to shoot some x-wings with you!"

"Next thing you know, this is going to be one of their recruitment videos," Sabine commented, only half sarcastic.

Next was the stanza at which they had failed so miserably the first time around. However, with the lyrics projected onto the nearby wall, they would unfortunately have something planned to sing. "Barrel roll, barrel roll, barrel roll up high, just look at us fly! We're riding in our TIE fighters through the sky! Barrel roll, barrel roll, barrel roll, it's grand, I don't want to land! We're flying along and destroying the rebel fleet's last stand!"

"Looks like we've found us some wannabe pilots," Sabine commented.

"No way are we taking them in if they defect," Zeb said quickly. "These troopers aren't like Wedge and Hobbie; I'd bet they have a collective negative four brain cells."

"Nice and shiny and good at flying are we! We're flying close together like two birds made of metal would be! Let's kill those rebels before us and sing a chorus or two! Come on, it's lovely weather to shoot some x-wings with you! Lovely weather to shoot some x-wings with you! Lovely weather to shoot some x-wings with you! Lovely weather to shoot some x-wings with you!"

The rebels cringed and clutched their ears as the troopers attempted and failed to hit a high note. "Manda, that was awful!" Sabine exclaimed. The crowd disagreed, however, and applauded with excessive enthusiasm.

"I can't believe these people like this!" Ezra said, frustrated. "The Empire is destroying their planet, and they're applauding! We're trying to free them, asking for encores of songs about us dying! Has this entire planet been brainwashed?" The rebels were silent for a while, reflecting on all the sacrifices they, their crew, and every member of the Rebellion, had made for their cause, only to be rejected by the people they were trying to help.

Finally, after a few minutes had passed, Zeb said, "Not all of them." The Spectres looked up to see four little kids, one Twi'lek, one human, one Nautolian, and one Mirialan, none of which could have been over the age of eight. They were dressed in old, worn clothes that were too small for them, and their small faces were dirty as they played in the alley behind the rebels, kicking a tattered ball back and forth between them, but their laughter was more meaningful than the applause of any crowd.

"One day, we'll get to sing, too," said the young Nautolian girl to her friends.

"Yeah!" cheered the Twi'lek boy. "And we'll let everyone come to hear it, no matter what species they are."

"And our songs will be happy, not about people dying," said the human boy.

The Mirialan girl began to sing. "Jingle bells, jingle bells!" Her friends joined in. "Jingle all the way! Oh, what fun it is to ride in a one droid open sleigh!"

Just then, the Spectres got a message from Chopper on their com-links. "We have to go now," said Sabine, translating for the other two. "The stormtroopers have left, and the crowd is dispersing."

"Just a second," said Ezra. He took some items from the bags that Zeb had carried and laid a loaf of bread and four candy canes at the entrance to the alley, knowing the children would likely run if he approached them. "Have a merry Life Day!" Ezra called, waving.

"Merry Life Day!" the children echoed, staring up at him with wide eyes. Too soon, the Spectres had to leave.

l-o-l (-o-) l-o-l

"You'll never guess what we saw in Garel City today!" Sabine exclaimed to Kanan and Hera as she and Ezra burst into the common room, with Zeb following behind them at a more reasonable pace. Their space parents looked up, worried.

"Dancing stormtroopers!" Ezra announced. "It was ridiculous! They made these awful parodies of Life Day songs, and they wouldn't let any aliens listen!"

"Wait! I have an idea!" Sabine announced. She motioned for her space siblings to follow her to plot her mischievous scheme where Kanan and Hera couldn't hear. They gathered in Sabine's cabin, who grinned. "So," she whispered conspiratorially, "do we have any speakers?"

l-o-l (-o-) l-o-l

An hour later, Sabine, Zeb, and Ezra were presenting their plan to Kanan and Hera.

"You want us to let you do this?" said Hera incredulously.

Kanan smirked at her. "It'll boost morale."

Hera whirled around to face him. "You, too?"

"What? It sounds like fun!" Kanan protested.

Hera sighed, hiding a smile. "Fine." The kids, plus Kanan, cheered.

l-o-l (-o-) l-o-l

The next day, after the Ghost had arrived back at Chopper Base, Ezra, Zeb, and Sabine stood atop a platform of crates stacked up about ten feet high. A large crowd of their fellow rebels was crowded beneath.

"Ahem!" said Ezra into the microphone. It squeaked horrendously, and they all cringed. "Um, so, yeah. We're going to sing you a song now!" Some of the higher ranking officers looked on skeptically.

"What if they fall?" Hera fretted. "That 'stage' does not look very sturdy."

"Relax, Hera. It'll be fine," Kanan reassured her, putting an arm around her shoulders. "For once, I don't have a bad feeling about this."

Onstage, Sabine cued Chopper, who started the music, and the song began.

"TIE fighters scream, are you listening? Out in space, they're exploding," sang Ezra. Sabine joined in, harmonizing. "A beautiful sight, we're happy tonight, walking in a rebel wonderland." The crowd cheered, especially the group of recruits who had recently joined the Rebellion's ranks. For the next verse, Zeb sang, "Gone away is the stormtrooper, in our way is a Sith Lord. We'll get a lightsaber and battle Darth Vader, walking in a rebel wonderland!" During this stanza, Sabine and Ezra demolished a life-size poster of said Sith Lord with their light- and darksabers, respectively. Then they all sang, "At Chopper Base, we can build a snowman," Zeb swung his arm out at the vast desert sarcastically, "Then pretend that he's a stormtrooper!" Ezra used the Force to build a giant sand man, complete with a colorful scarf provided by Sabine. "We'll have target practice on our snowman, until an angry krynka knocks him down!" The three rebels unholstered their weapons and fired on Ezra's creation, sending sand flying everywhere. "Later on, we'll conspire how to beat the Empire: we'll fight unafraid, the Rebellion way, walking in a rebel wonderland!" After they finished the last note, the crowd started cheering, and some of the rowdy pilots threw a few poor, frightened dokma, the shell critters, onstage as if they were flowers. Zeb promptly started sneezing.

"Merry Life Day, everyone!" cheered the Spectres.

AN: Thank you for reading! Please review and give feedback so I can improve my writing.

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars Rebels or the songs "Santa Claus is Coming to Town," "Sleigh Ride," "Jingle Bells," or "Walking in a Winter Wonderland."


End file.
